English

Light inflaton model in a metastable Universe

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2021-10-27 v2

Abstract

We minimally extend the SM with a Z2_2 symmetric potential containing a single scalar field, serving as our inflaton with a quartic self-coupling. In the model we have symmetry breaking in both sectors, and with the addition of an inflaton-Higgs portal, the Universe is able to efficiently reheat via 2-2 inflaton-Higgs scattering. Assuming that the Universe with a positive cosmological constant should be metastable, only one particular symmetry breaking pattern in the vacuum is possible, without the need to finely-tune the Higgs' quartic self-coupling. Inflaton with masses in the range O(103)mχmhO(10^{-3})\leq m_{\chi}\leq m_{h} and mixing angles that span θm2=O(1011102)\theta_{m}^{2}=O(10^{-11}-10^{-2}) evade all current cosmological, experimental and stability constraints required for a metastable EW vacuum. Upgraded particle physics experiments may be able to probe the parameter space with θm2O(104)\theta_{m}^{2}\geq O(10^{-4}), where we would observe trilinear Higgs couplings suppressed by up to 2%2\% compared to the SM value. However to access the parameter space of very weakly-coupled inflaton, we rely on the proposals to build experiments that target the hidden sector.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.02540,
  title  = {Light inflaton model in a metastable Universe},
  author = {Fedor Bezrukov and Abigail Keats},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.02540},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

22 pages, 2 figures Version accepted in PRD, improved plots

R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:51:20.448Z